Fighting the Jihad of the Pen: Countering Revolutionary Islam's Ideology

Al Qaeda's ideology is not new; their critique of the existing political and social order and vision for how to redeem the Muslim world builds on preexisting arguments of several 20th century predecessors who called for an Islamic revolution that would create a new order based on Islam. The persistence of revolutionary Islam suggests that these ideas need to be countered in order to strike at the root of the problem driving Islamically motivated terrorism and insurgency. U.S. efforts to defeat Al Qaeda, however, continue to focus primarily on killing or capturing the leadership, interdicting operations, and defensively bolstering the homeland and U.S. assets against various types of attacks. In order to confront Al Qaeda's ideology, U.S. efforts should focus on indirectly fostering “a market place of ideas”—the space and culture of questioning and debating—in order to challenge the grievances and solutions proposed by revolutionary Islam.     

Strategic Consequences of Radical Islamic Neofundamentalism

Militarized Islamic neofundamentalism is a modern and essentially violent ideology. As an ideology, it cannot be killed, but instead must be supplanted. The strategic objective of defeating the ideology is distinct from, and sometimes in conflict with, the tactical objective of combating terrorists. Managing this tension requires the war on terror to be conceived in essentially political terms, which in turn requires a realignment of U.S. security policy.     

Terrorist learning in context – the case of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb

ABSTRACT

It is astonishing how many researchers adopt a counterterrorism agenda and suggest researching terrorist learning in order to shape security countermeasures. Posing different questions would lead to different answers. One such question would be, “What makes terrorist learning different?” Terrorist groups operate clandestinely, which means the environment in which they learn is different. This paper investigates the context in which Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has learned. Thus, a qualitative case study analysis of the influence of meso- and macro-level factors on AQIM’s tactical and strategic patterns between 1999 and 2013 will shed light on terrorist learning. Meso-level influences are conceptualised as cooperation and ultimate merging with Al Qaeda, and macro-level influences as government action. The result is puzzling: AQIM has learned tactically from Al Qaeda and strategically from counterterrorism. This is puzzling because scholars commonly question whether it is possible to learn under pressure. Nevertheless, AQIM’s learning has been more profound when faced with pressure than when cooperating voluntarily. The sustainable answer to the question of the political implication thereof is not how to boost counterterrorism measures but how to redefine them. If what is different about terrorist learning is above all the context, we need to question the context.     

The Muslim Middle East: Is There a Democratic Option?

American counterterrorism strategy defines as “moderate” or “mainstream” any Muslim who does not support the jihadi extremists, which sets the bar very low and does not consider the question of how widespread such support actually might be. Unfortunately, Al Qaeda is not the lunatic fringe of Sunni Islam—it is the fanatic core of Sunni Islam, and shares much of its ideology with other organized Islamic groups and, for that matter, much of the Muslim faithful. “Moderate” Islamist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, are moderate only in relative terms, are mostly antidemocratic, and are more correctly considered nonviolent enemies of the U.S. This being the case, a democratic opening in the Muslim Middle East is all too likely to bring to power profoundly antidemocratic groups that are virulently and possibly violently hostile to the U.S. A possible alternative strategy is one stressing good government, with gradual democratization as societies decompress.     

Research Note: Hassan al-Turabi,Osama bin Laden,and Al Qaeda in Sudan

This research note explores the events and circumstances surrounding Osama bin Laden's stay in Sudan from 1991 to 1996. In particular, it discusses the role that the Sudanese politician, Hassan al-Turabi may have played in the development of bin Laden and al Qaeda. It draws particular attention to the role of the Popular Arab and Islamic Congress (PAIC) in the emergence of a distinctive form of Radical Islam and offers a preliminary discussion of the emergence of particular qualities of al Qaeda ideology.     

Foreign Influences and Shifting Horizons: The Ongoing Evolution of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb

This article details how prior to the establishment of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AGIM), Meghrebis—that is, Algerians, Moroccans, Tunisians and others--made up a significant percentage of the foreign fighters in the al Qaeda-led insurgency in Iraq, thus helping to build the trust networks between al Qaeda central and the Maghreb-based groups, culminating in the the 2007 formal affiliation of the Groupe Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat (GSPC) with al Qaeda. Since then, an emboldened AQIM has evolved significantly, both strategically and operationally.     

Countering Aggressive Rising Powers: A Clash of Strategic Cultures

The United States has to contend with rising powers ranging from the prc, which is already an economic and political great power and potentially a military threat, to Al Qaeda and the network of Islamist terror organizations, whose means to power remain limited but whose will to power and aggression are great. In the middle are states that already or may soon possess nuclear weapons. Each of these powers has its own “strategic culture” that affects its decision-making, and attention needs to be paid to how the strategic habits of today's rising and aggressive powers might intersect with U.S. strategy.     

The Al Qaeda Brand: The Strategic Use of the “Terrorist” Label

Al Qaeda leaders have consistently praised the Chechen insurgents as an exemplary front of global jihad. Ayman al-Zawahiri recently applauded the steadfastness of the Chechen rebels and indicated that their resolve for jihad is worthy of emulation. Ever since the world found out about a war going on in the Muslim republic in the North Caucasus, Al Qaeda leadership has attempted to represent the Chechen struggle as one of its own battlefields. In turn, the Russian government has tried to justify its policies in the North Caucasus through demonstrating to the world that the Kremlin is fighting nothing less than Osama bin Laden’s agents in Chechnya. The North Caucasus insurgents in turn have embraced some of Al Qaeda’s narratives. While such narratives have proliferated, the factual evidence to show the direct links between the North Caucasus insurgents and Al Qaeda is still lacking. The article examines how terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda use framing for strategic ends. The evidence discussed here suggests that Al Qaeda, the North Caucasus insurgents, and the Russian government have adopted similar narratives. However, the lack of evidence to back up such narratives indicates the differences in reasons driving the convergence of the narratives.     

The Challenges of Strategic Terrorism

ABSTRACT

The Al Qaeda type of terrorist is quite different from that of those of the IRA or Hezbollah. The former is seeking a clash of civilizations or at least a clash between the Islamic world and the West or at least between Islam and the US. The latter used and use terrorism to pursue a specific objective and a limited one at that in scope and geography. Terrorism is not a one dimensional phenomenon.     

Do Drone Strikes Degrade Al Qaeda? Evidence From Propaganda Output

The United States has used unmanned, aerial vehicles—drones—to launch attacks on militants associated with Al Qaeda and other violent groups based in Pakistan. The goal is to degrade the target's capacity to undertake political and violent action. We assess the effectiveness of drone strikes in achieving this goal, measuring degradation as the capacity of Al Qaeda to generate and disseminate propaganda. Propaganda is a key output of many terrorist organizations and a long-standing priority for Al Qaeda. Unlike other potential measures of terrorist group activity and capacity, propaganda output can be observed and measured. If drone strikes have degraded Al Qaeda, their occurrence should be correlated with a reduction in the organization's propaganda output. The analysis presented here finds little evidence that this is the case. Drone strikes have not impaired Al Qaeda's ability to generate propaganda.     

Analyzing Al Qaedaism

Three major events are responsible for the rampancy today of Al Qaedaism, the doctrine of Al Qaeda, an Islam extremist organization. They are： the Anti-Soviet Afghanistan War for the birth of the group; the September 11 terrorist attacks for the spread of its extremist demagogy and the war on terror for its branches networking into alliances worldwide. AI Qaedaism aims at driving away Western forces on the Moslem lands, overthrowing local Pro-West regimes, destroying Israel and setting up a Caliphate empire. Its rampancy has resulted from a combination of diverse factors at work under specific historical conditions rather an inevitable outcome of the growth of the Islam religion. As an ideological weapon for launching Jihad to oust Western influence and topple local regimes, Al Qaedaism reflects an extremist portrayal of modern Islam society, politics, economy and culture.     

Taking a New Perspective: Mapping the Al Qaeda Network Through the Eyes of the UN Security Council

Network analysis has attracted significant attention when researching the phenomenon of transnational terrorism, particularly Al Qaeda. While many scholars have made valuable contributions to mapping Al Qaeda, several problems remain due to a lack of data and the omission of data provided by international organizations such as the UN. Thus, this article applies a social network analysis and subsequent mappings of the data gleaned from the Security Council's consolidated sanctions list, and asks what they can demonstrate about the structure and organizational characteristics of Al Qaeda. The study maps the Al Qaeda network on a large scale using a newly compiled data set. The analysis reveals that the Al Qaeda network consists of several hundred individual and group nodes connecting almost all over the globe. Several major nodes are crucial for the network structure, while simultaneously many other nodes only weakly and foremost regionally connect to the network. The article concludes that the findings tie in well to the latest research pointing to local and simultaneously global elements of Al Qaeda, and that the new data is a valuable source for further analyses, potentially in combination with other data.     

Targets and Tactics: Testing for a Duality within Al Qaeda’s Network

One prevailing view treats Al Qaeda as a monolithic entity with a global network of affiliates. Yet, certain affiliates appear more committed to local political and territorial goals – parochial, not global, terrorists. We construct a classification scheme to differentiate affiliates conceptually and empirically, and then track their types over time. We sort Al Qaeda’s network of affiliates using a principal components analysis of terrorist attacks from 1988 to 2012. We show that this aids in identifying latent affiliate types, and interpreting shifts in behavior. We find that despite Al Qaeda’s anti-western rhetoric, there exists a global-parochial divide in which most affiliates are parochial – with anti-Western groups pursuing local political goals even when Western targets remain. By providing an empirical strategy to identify which affiliates are more or less aligned with global terrorism, this research holds implications for the literatures on terrorism and civil war, terrorism and democracy, and the effects of counterterrorism.     

Research Note: Terrorist Groups as Business Firms: A New Typological Framework

Existing typological frameworks do not adequately categorize terrorist groups by their operational characteristics. We propose a new framework which compares terrorist groups to business firms. In our framework, terrorist groups are mapped on two axes: centralization of resources and centralization of operations. We separate terrorist groups into four typologies echoing familiar business arrangements: Hierarchy, Venture Capital, Franchise, and Brand. Responses to each typology are briefly sketched out. We conclude by analyzing the changes in Al Qaeda over the last two decades in the context of our framework. We close by proposing appropriate policy responses to combat Al Qaeda in light of its current Brand typology.     

Comparing Extremist Perpetrators of Suicide and Non-Suicide Attacks in the United States

ABSTRACT

This study explores differences in perpetrators of suicide attacks and non-suicide attacks in the United States. The study uses data on far-right and Al Qaeda and affiliated/inspired terrorists between 1990 and 2013 from the United States Extremist Crime Database. Our analysis estimates logistic regression models to test whether suicide attackers were more likely to have exhibited specific risk factors for suicidality, while examining other prominent claims regarding patterns of suicide terrorism. Suicide attackers were no more likely than non-suicide attackers to have previously attempted suicide or to have been diagnosed as mentally ill. Suicide attackers were more likely, though, to have a history of substance abuse, to be loners, have served in the military, participated in paramilitary training, and be more ideologically committed to the cause. We found that Al Qaeda affiliated/inspired attackers were more likely than far-right attackers to have engaged in a suicide mission. With the current focus on Americans traveling to Syria and Iraq to receive training and fight for jihadist movements (e.g., the Islamic State), our findings appear relevant. Observers have expressed concern that these fighters may return and then commit attacks in their homeland. Law enforcement could make use of this study’s findings.     

The Malaysian “Islamic” State versus the Islamic State (IS): evolving definitions of “terror” in an “Islamising” nation-state

ABSTRACT

This article provides a study of how the Malaysian state defines and redefines “terror” as the nature of militancy changes from the Communist insurgency to present day’s Islamist jihadism. Tracing such definitional changes, the article demonstrates how the portrait of a terrorist not only is inherently political (and at certain junctures, politicised), but also reflects the changing nature of the state. While able to ethnicise and externalise the Communist Terrorists (CTs), the rise of Islamist militancy forced the Malaysian state to shelve the term “terrorist” in favour of religious “deviancy” until the advent of the “war on terror”. Advancing along a state-driven Islamisation project, the discursive ideal that is the “Islamic state”, was securitised (1980–2001), normalised (2001–2013), and resecuritised (2014–2016) as a balancing act not only to neutralise the security threat but also to augment the state’s “Islamic” credentials for domestic political gains. Following the emergence of the Islamic State (IS), I argue that the Malaysian state is now embroiled in an “Islamic state versus Islamic State” dilemma, where in the face of a far enemy it cannot decisively eliminate, the state has no choice but to defend itself as a sovereign nation-state as well as an “Islamic” one, further problematising Islam in discourses of security and violence.     

The Internet: A Virtual Training Camp?

This study aims to investigate how Al Qaeda uses the Internet for military training and preparation. What kind of training material is available on jihadi webpages, who produces it, and for what purpose? The article argues that in spite of a vast amount of training-related literature online, there have been few organized efforts by Al Qaeda to train their followers by way of the Internet. The Internet is per today not a “virtual training camp” organized from above, but rather a resource bank maintained and accessed largely by self-radicalized sympathizers.     

Al Qaeda in Mali: The Defection Connections

The control of northern Mali in 2012 by Tuareg rebels and Islamist fighters aligned with al Qaeda proved a serious challenge to Western counterterrorism policies. This article looks at several aspects often overlooked in discussions of the internal dynamics of al Qaeda-linked groups. Using defections related to the al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) offshoot group, the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), in Mali as a case study, this article considers the issues of race and legitimacy connected to the group and the threat and policy implications that flow from this analysis.     

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula: Framing Narratives and Prescriptions

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has positioned itself at the vanguard of a media revolution in which terrorist groups both create and frame news events to an unprecedented extent. Through the publication of its e-magazine Sada al-Malahim (The Echo of Epic Battles), the organization has sought to mobilize both Yemeni and non-Yemeni Muslim, Arabic-speaking audiences to carry out violent jihad. This article utilizes the concept of collective action frames to analyze Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's media output, identifying the organization's grievance narratives, ideological justifications for violent actions, and means to strengthen its credibility among its intended audiences.